Baal

THE DAY HELD ON to life by a thin red thread gashed along the horizon. Above it the sky was starless as a lowered blackout curtain.

All across the wide encampment the fires flickered, the lights of a city perched on the brink of a desert no-man's-land. At the tolling of the bell the noise of the assembly, their howls and curses, suddenly rumbled to a halt until there was only the barking of the camp dogs.

And then, as Naughton stood cold and transfixed at the mouth of Musallim's tent, the mass of humanity began to rise up from the smoke-enshrouded encampment. They had thrown all consideration of dignity away; Naughton saw them running for the tent beyond as if they were a pack of maddened animals, snarling and snapping at each other, most of them in filthy rags and many entirely nude. They called out the name over and over, shrieking and begging, as they sent a cloud of sand that spun whipping through tents like desert devil spirals. Naughton saw many of them trampled; one would fall, tripping a score of others, and then there would be a crush of bodies, all arms and legs and heads, fighting to get free and find room inside the great tent ahead. The wealthy ones, clad in shining gold robes and dazzling jewelry, ran shrieking with the rabble; their servants, in the lead, struck down people right and left with the butts of rifles. And still the bell boomed on and on like a great commanding voice and the assembly shrieked the answer Baal Baal Baal until it became so loud and terrible Naughton put his hands to his ears.

Wherever the main body of the assembly had passed, the torn ground was littered with the broken bodies of those dead and dying. Then came the sick, struggling through the thick sand on crutches and crawling on their bellies like snake skeletons while angry-eyed dogs nipped at their heels and, taking hold of ripped clothes, worried the wasted bodies mercilessly.

Musallim said quietly, "It is time for us to go, Mr. Naughton. Our place is waiting." He opened a desk drawer and reached inside. His hand emerged with a shining ruby-encrusted revolver.

Naughton was watching a fight that had broken out at the tent's aperture; men and women battled with each other to gain entrance and finally vanished in a swirl of sand. Musallim caught his elbow and urged him from his safe refuge into a maddened horde beyond.

As they neared the tent Naughton saw how huge it really was; its appearance had been deceptive. Now the wind beat at its billowing sides and the entrance swallowed swarms of ragged figures. Naughton heard a click! as Musallim eased back the hammer of his revolver. Around them the masses churned with glittering teeth and grasping hands, their voices calling out the name even as they battered each other. Musallim shouted at a group of beggars to make way and one of the men, a cruel savagery in his eyes, leaped for Naughton. Musallim's arm jerked out and a pistol shot flung the man away.

They reached the tent entrance, which was clogged by the shouting hordes, and to Naughton's horror Musallim began indiscriminately firing into the dark clot of bodies until a path was made and the two men were able to slip through.

Inside more than one thousand people crowded shoulder to shoulder, kneeling in the sand. Glittering golden chandeliers hung suspended by cables from the ceiling, illuminating in harsh white a sea of heads and bodies in motion like waves. Naughton followed Musallim as he elbowed his way through the mob, brandishing his gun and shouting threats, but the American kept a careful watch over his shoulder in case of an attack from behind. They reached the front of the shouting, sobbing mass and then Naughton saw the immense statue to which the assembly seemed to be praying. High atop a pedestal of gold was a primitive statue of a man. The arms were thrown across the chest in an attitude of superiority and the elongated head, almost triangular, showed thin slits of eyes and a cruel slash of lips. One of the most remarkable, and certainly most disturbing, aspects of the strange artifact was its sexual organs; the penis jutted forward almost four feet and the testes were great black spheres. Naughton stood motionless for a moment, staring at the figure; beside him Musallim fell to his knees and blended his own pleading voice with those of the others. The figure had been carved by a time-lost master; beneath the black stone actual rippling muscles bulged. The features were fierce and demanding. Its eyes seemed to follow Naughton as he stepped forth from the throng and reached out to touch the stone.

It was then that he almost tripped over something that cried out and scuttled away. He looked down and saw an Arab child in rags, its eyes wide and frightened and its body reduced to the merest house of bone. The elbows looked as sharp as daggers and the knees were flat pads on rails of legs. Naughton decided the child was male and that he had probably fallen and been injured in the rush of the crowd. As he looked closer he saw a metal collar around the child's neck, attached to a chain that let out about three feet of slack, then joined to a metal spike driven firmly into the sand. The child seemed on the verge of hysteria; he cringed, holding up his hands for mercy from the man towering over him.

Naughton stepped back a few paces, realizing with a curious and alien sense of power that, if he had so desired, he could have crushed the child with one well-placed slam of his boot.

The great clamor of the bell stopped so abruptly that the sudden silence made Naughton's ears ring. The assembly was quieted; figures lay prone on the ground or kneeled in deference to the glowering statue. Naughton, breaking out in a sweat of absolute fear, looked around for Musallim, but the man had been sucked into the maelstrom. It was not so much the man Naughton sought as the safety of his revolver. Now, standing amid the sour smells of sweat and anticipation, Naughton again felt compelled to seek the eyes of the idol. Its gaze rooted him to the spot. He heard a roar in his head like someone shouting at him from a great distance and he said, No no this cannot be!

He was awed by the utter power of the figure as it stood triumphant over the child. How strong and firm it was, he thought. It was the master of them all. When they'd all died and their flesh had decayed back to the dust it would still be there, haughty and sure, in its stone body that had worn the coats of countless ages. He was suddenly ashamed of his frailty. He wanted to fall to his knees and hide his face, but he could not. He trembled, caught between the statue and the mob and unable to turn his back on either.

Naughton was aware of a new sound. The wind had risen to a high-pitched wail that ripped past the great tent. Around him the walls were beaten by the fists of those who had not found room inside. The tent shuddered and rippled. Ropes and support beams groaned. Naughton thought for an instant that the entire enclosure and all in it would be ravaged by the force of the gathering sandstorm.

From behind him, at the rear of the mass, someone screamed brokenly, a strangling sound. Naughton turned to look over the assembly but he couldn't see back as far as the source of the sound. He thought another fight had broken out. And then a Bedouin very near him cried out and put his hands over his ears, throwing himself to the ground and rolling amid the other bodies.

Naughton stood as if in a trance, the sweat beading on his face and dripping softly to his collar.

He watched as the throes began to spread. The wealthy Kuwaitis and Bedouin beggars alike took up the same moan, the same terrible cry of hatred. Scattered fights erupted. Naughton saw the gleam of bloodlust in their eyes as they sprang at each other's throats. He drew back against the statue, feeling somehow protected by its bulk. When the men and women struggled to their feet and attacked each other without hesitation the screaming, moaning din rose and rose until Naughton thought he was going mad. The noise pounded at his temples and he cringed, unable to protect himself.

He saw men ripping the clothes from women and then copulating with them in the churned sand. Women threw their skirts over their heads and spread their legs for anyone who would take them. Gradually the fighting altered itself into an endless series of private sexual combats, but here and there new fights began over partners. Naughton saw men and women wildly hammering each other with no shame nor guilt; women used brutally and then thrown aside for the next pair of ready thighs. He was sickened but could not turn away; it was beyond his power to turn away. A copulating pair rolled against him and he stepped back out of their way. Someone, a Bedouin, screamed something in his ear and leaped for him. He wrestled away from the man and saw the Bedouin dragged down into a heap of struggling bodies. He moved back to get away from sweating nude figures plastered with sand and as he did he stumbled again over the child. He said, "Goddammit!" and kicked out blindly, hearing a grunt as his boot struck flesh. A hollow-eyed woman with gray decaying teeth groped at his crotch. He swung out at her, his stomach reeling, and caught her solidly beneath the chin. Another woman clutched at his back, her nails raking open his shirt while her teeth tore at his ear. Naughton cursed and pushed her off, his chest heaving and blood dripping down from his ravaged earlobe. A gaunt man in stained robes kicked at his groin, but Naughton caught the man's ankle and heaved him backward onto a stuporous nude couple.

He had no time to think; the blood boiled in his brain. Goddamn them, he said. Goddamn all of them to hell. They were going to kill both themselves and him too; that was it. This would go on until they were all dead. He heard pistol shots and wondered if he could find Musalhm. He could hardly breathe for the awful stink. He was choking. Goddamn them, he said. They're trying to kill me. He stumbled against two Bedouins embroiled in a knife fight; one of the men bled from a long gash across his chest and his weak eyes mirrored the loss of blood. The draining man saw Naughton and, turning toward him with a foul curse, lifted his arm to strike with his weapon. At once his opponent took advantage; his arm flashed as he drove his weapon into the small of the wounded man's back.

Naughton picked up the fallen man's knife and backed away as the victor approached like a dark juggernaut. Naughton screamed, "Get away!" but his voice was lost in the raging din. He saw murder in the eyes of the other man. Someone behind Naughton shrieked loudly into his ear, and as he spun around to strike he tripped over a body and fell heavily, at the same time tearing the knife back and forth with newfound strength to save his own life.

And then the moaning ceased.

Those fighting in bloody sand stared as if someone had abruptly startled them from their anger. The copulating bodies slowed their sexual throes. Naughton saw Musallim standing halfway across the tent, the gun still in his hand. Their eyes met.

Naughton trembled in rage and confusion. His arms and chest were sticky and warm, but he was only dimly aware that he had bitten into his lower Up. He felt feverish, on the verge of collapse. As the sweet smell of blood reached him he dropped the knife and, like a wounded animal, pressed his face against the wet sand.

He had slashed the throat of the child.

With a cry Naughton pushed at the slack body and dragged himself through the sand. The child's eyes were open above its horrible mauled throat; they stared blankly at Naughton and the wound made him think the child was laughing through blood-caked lips. Naughton dragged over bodies that sought to touch him, to clutch at his drawn face and tear strips from his tattered shirt. He hid his face from them and cringed at the kiss of crawling hands.

And then the sound grew even louder, they were calling the name over and over. He felt as if he were encased in a vault with fleshy walls. He reached out and touched a woman's bare thigh. She sucked eagerly at his mouth. Around him they lifted their arms to the ceiling and the name Baal Baal Baal whirled about his head. When he took a breath it was the breath of Baal. When he clutched at slippery flesh it was the flesh of Baal. When he kissed a pair of straining lips they were the lips of Baal.

Sweat filled his eyes. His vision became cloudily dreamlike. He suddenly felt elated and free, caressed intimately by a woman - or more than one woman - he had never even seen before. The smell of blood had seemed to heighten his general sensory awareness. He ripped at the remnants of his shirt, suddenly wishing to be rid of it, and a woman bit like a wild thing at his stomach. The voices around him reached a fever pitch and he let the fever take him. The name throbbed within him. It had already filled his mouth before he could speak. He said, "Baal."

Through his blurred eyes he saw men moving among the assembly. One of them he seemed to recognize though he couldn't remember from where. The multitude shrieked in a frenzy. He tried to rise up but was too weak; he remained where he was, his head down. And then someone took his arm and began to pull him steadily to his feet. The grip was tight and strong. Naughton could feel nails biting into his flesh. He tried to see who it was but he could not; the man towered over him like the bulbous-organed statue.

A finger touched his forehead.

He felt a sensation like a mild electric shock course through him; it set him on fire and made the blood tingle. He opened his mouth to cry out in an ecstatic agony as his blood turned to liquid fire. Then the man released him and was gone in the crush of the assembly.

Someone else moved beside him and held him as his knees sagged. He looked across and through the mist could make out the placid, drained face of Musallim. His chest was marked with the paths of riotous fingernails and his headdress had been torn away. Naughton blinked. On the man's forehead, directly between his eyes, was a small red mark that looked like some sort of stain. No, Naughton told himself, no stain. No stain. A fingerprint. A fingerprint.

When he reached out to touch it with grasping empty fingers his knees finally buckled.